


up in the air

by Anonymous



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, Skyrates AU, quite niche
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: oh yeahit's skyrate timeinspired again by havok, really just a clumsy proof of concept but i enjoy writing it and i hope you enjoy reading it
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), don't ship real people - Relationship
Comments: 20
Kudos: 93
Collections: Anonymous





	1. call it fate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WreakingHavok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/gifts).



There is only one city in the sky. 

Niki knows this, but sometimes she wonders. After all, it has a name. Names are a thing of...differentiation. Of contrast. The scorching apathy of the new residence guard, for example. The way she spits Nikita, like it's profanity, and rags the card out of her hand each morning as if they've never met. It's sharply distinct from the sweet old soul who used to call her Niki and conveniently forgo marking down her leisure hours. At least they trusted her. That's a rare thing these days.

No, she doesn't just live in "the city". She lives in _a_ city, and it's named Berlin. Everyone in Berlin knows their job and how to do it, their place in the world and how to fill it. Niki tells herself she is no different.

It does admittedly get lonely every so often, sitting alone with only the glow of her screens for company. Overshadowed by a hundred thousand tons of metal and life, her viewing station juts out from the belly of Berlin. By the dingy bulging window it's easy to imagine that there is no city at all. Easier even to pretend that the only things in the universe are that band of grey sky, that stripe of beige plains and her undisturbed office.

At just the right angle and time of day, the sunrise paints a thin ribbon of light across the empty chair to her left. The reason sits heavy in her pocket, always at hand for constant inspection. It is her personal doom neatly printed in black ink. 

**THIS CARD ENTITLES THE BEARER TO LEVEL THREE CLEARANCE AND AMENITIES UPON ROUTINE INSPECTION**

**SURNAME/NACHNAME: Nihachu**  
**GIVEN NAMES/VORNAMEN: Nikita**  
**GENDER/GESCHLECT: F**  
**D.O.B./GEBURFSTAG: 03/11/101FA**  
**POWER/BEGABUNG: Memorious Manipulation (Class A)/Speichermanipulation (Klasse A)**

**DIESE KARTE BERECHTIGT DEN BESITZER ZU BERECHTIGUNGEN UND AUSRÜSTUNGSGEGENSTÄNDEN AUF HOHER EBENE NACH EINER INSPEKTION**

Nobody would befriend someone who could craft the truth so seamlessly. Family calls have been few and far between since her power's undeniable exposure, and she can't exactly blame them. The system allocates her a duty that makes it useless, the impossibly boring task of monitoring the wretched below, and she tries to put it out of her mind.

The night shift is a lonely one. In her work she is limited to sending out broadcasts that will never be replied to, scanning the ground endlessly for any powered presence. Nothing out of the usual ever comes up on the equipment. Nobody ever asks her if it does.

When the isolation is at its worst, she watches the faroff antics of the human packs and finds herself in grudging sympathy with their troubles. Niki could and should report their presence, but what harm does it do? They never steal or riot or do anything at all, really. Far be it from her to deny them their limited little lives, subsisting in the wreckage of long ago. It would be unfair to destroy such a people for the sin of existing. Or so she thinks.

Without exception the handbooks on her desk take care to stress that Berlin is the only city left in the sky, and though Niki has her doubts the empty desert beyond is all within her field of expertise. It is dependable in this because, unlike her, the evidence cannot lie.

Until the day it does.

There are still at least two cities left in the sky. One of them is called London, and right now it's running out of time. 

It isn't Will's job to worry about it. It's his job to watch the right screens and press the right buttons and make sure that every goddamned maglev on the Jubilee Line is where it should be, when it should be. But sometimes he volunteers to run paperwork down to the boiler room out of sheer boredom and hears the unhealthy thrumming of the generators for himself and he wonders. He hasn't made it this far by letting the unusual pass unnoticed. He notes it down and continues on his way.

In all honesty, he likes his job. It's voluntary, which is a definite bonus in comparison to some colonies, and about a million times better than working himself in the fields below like the poorest have to do. Security is lax these days, though - he would know - and at least the flourishing farms provide enough surplus that everyone is fed and watered. London's leaders may be corrupt but they understand how to keep their power. Namely, by letting those with agricultural powers do their thing.

Complacency is the only danger to Will above the floor, but it's a doozy. It threatens his life as a Londoner with worrying regularity. Just one slip of the tongue is all it would take to destroy the homely existence he's built for himself over the years.

So he makes enough friends and does enough work and displays his power often enough to seem auspicious to society. Mind-numbing tedium aside, it's rewarding to see people get to work and home in time on his watch. The resulting balance of fear and contentment is nothing if not exhausting. But now Will's had a taste of this life and poured everything of himself into maintaining it, he is _never_ going back to the way it was before.

Until the day he does.

There is a city over the sea that used to be many. An agreement of sorts was made and the old names became The Island, then just Island, and now Ireland. 

In much the same way, she sheds her names in layers in pursuit of something truer. As a kid she goes by Rebecca, a reasonable name chosen for a reasonable girl. Throughout her rebellious teenage phase, she swears a lot and only responds to Becca and makes promises to herself and the city that her loved ones tell her are impossible to keep. 

She keeps them anyway, but sometimes it takes more than she has to give and then it takes more and she wonders.

And when the time comes around, she ends up not making as big a deal out of her adult name as most. Most people already call her it anyway; Minx is perfectly serviceable, and it looks fucking awesome on posters.

Everyone does their part for Ireland. Everyone reaps the benefits. That's just the way things are. It's been established over the generations as a hub, a neutral ground for trade and discussion. For most kids that means two options: swelling the ranks of the dockworkers, or leaving on the first transport that will take them - in pursuit of more exciting careers and better-paid jobs far away. Perhaps once in a million or two, there are also those like Minx.

Her concerts are the biggest tourist attraction for thousands of miles around. Each tour drums up the most publicity the area has ever had (if you ignore the Soot scandal, and everyone ignores the Soot scandal). They bring in unfathomable commerce, which is enough to make her old-fashioned parents proud and her grinding friends thankful. In hard times she can simply make a joke about Irish whiskey or something on record and exports spike exponentially for months. In a world of impossible powers, this mundane skill is exclusive to her. 

Ireland's people love and appreciate Minx eternally - and her real power, in all its whimsical glory. What more could she possibly want?

There is a city in the sky called California. Those who live there are the lucky ones.

Or at least they must be. Worse, Dave decides one evening, would be to not have a city at all. To be human, to be alone. He tells himself this on every occasion he feels _it_ again, a strange new emotion that keeps trying to bubble up out of his throat and into his sword. It never does or will succeed, and he quells it by night in his apartment behind the reassurance of three padlocks and a deadbolt.

By day he patrols the eastern shields not out of choice but out of obligation. Those in power know full well he couldn't lose a fight if he tried. Obedience constitutes his saving grace, the flimsy blockade holding him back from the grasping arms of poverty, and he despises it with a lasting passion.

Dave has always been taught that the world below is broken and obsolete. He knows this, but sometimes he looks over the edge of his platform and hovers his hands over the controls and he wonders. There must be something down there, something more than the ruins of a lesser people and the savage packs that haunt them. Maybe.

Before his luck had developed - and he thinks of it that way very sincerely, in case a telepath is snooping nearby - Dave had made ends meet by volunteering for farm work. It had been unpleasant and difficult to grow food so close to the ocean, but there was a kind of soothing tedium to cultivating potatoes that he misses now. For all its dangers, for all its unnerving solidity, being on the floor had been kind of comforting in small doses.

No. No. Both his platform and his inner monologue are drifting off trajectory. He steers the former back towards its flight path and tries to think patriotic thoughts. One more struggles through anyway, unbidden, to tell him that the sunset is rather pretty today. Pink and orange weave a tapestry across the clouds. Some say that means a city has been slain, somewhere, and although he's hardly a superstitious man Dave grows sombre.

The bloated sun sinks before him until it seems to tremble on the earth itself, a marble teetering on a dusty globe. It is admittedly beautiful, Dave allows himself to think, and then he turns back to his work. What more could he possibly have?


	2. encounters of the worst kind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i vomited this up please enioy  
> again may be more may be not we shall see

It's almost funny. Built up in the back of her mind is a script of sorts, the painstakingly written drama of what would lead to her finding another colony. In it Niki is a begrudging heroine, struggling night and day to send out the perfect message in the perfect direction in the perfect discussion that leads her city into a new and wonderful world. How it actually happens is sheer dumb luck.

Nothing particularly remarkable marks that morning, is the thing. One eye on the screens and the other on sunrise, she contents herself with listening to a history podcast and picking chunks of paint from the wall. Most of the words she can mouth along to. The patch of exposed plaster is large enough to rest both palms against. Most days this is enough for her to bear.

No, the only oddity is that when she listlessly rakes her fingers over her keyboard for the sixth or seventh time, the resulting nonsensical keysmash is actually accepted as a network code. 

Which isn't quite right. Letter-based codes are nothing, unworkable, dead air. Out of boredom and mild curiosity, she lets the broadcast code run anyway. Something new is always worth a shot, right? The program asks for a voice file, and with unassailable indifference Niki drags the right prerecorded line into place.

_VIEWADMIN: Hallo! Diese nachricht kommt aus der stadt Berlin. Wir sind sehr daran interessiert, andere kolonien zu finden, falls noch welche übrig sind. Bitte antworten sie so schnell wie möglich._

Over time her message has become ever more short and ever more sweet. Hitting every point, according to the guidelines of her predecessors, but maybe in a slightly kinder tone. She's proud of it, despite everything, because without pride the illusion of work would be nothing. Less than nothing, even. A devolution of the liberty that separates her from those below.

The bizarre broadcast itself won't mean anything, either. Chances are the system has hit on an old maintenance or test network. She'll reset the console in a minute. No need to hurry when the only deadline is curfew. Niki yawns, and scoots her chair out to refill her coffee, and stretches her arms out into the watery sunlight, and then she hears the voice.

_JUBILEETXT: Hey! Sorry to be a buzzkill. I don't actually speak this language, and it isn't in my database. What department is this coming from?_

Two things are about as much as she can process. Thing one: the voice sounds as tired as her own. Thing two: _that's not a German accent._

Her mouth is hanging open, so she closes it. There's coffee on her jumper, so she rubs at it. This can't be happening. The goalposts were always supposed to move further and further away, a mountain forever just shy of insurmountable. Niki has known ever since she started living alone that she was never supposed to _succeed_ at finding life where none exists. This deserted room is a dumping ground for those with threatening powers. It's the kindest punishment for people like her, the miller's daughter forever spinning straw into gold. Which makes this all the more impossible. 

_JUBILEETXT: This is Coordination, by the way. For Jubilee, obviously._  
_JUBILEETXT: Also! Sorry it took so long to reply. I thought we retired the voice messenger? Apologies again._

For the next few minutes Niki just stares at the transcript and wonders if she's finally started hallucinating. Sometimes that happens, when you're tired and lonely. The letters don't waver, though, and she sloughs a veil of dust from the transmission equipment with quaking hands.

_VIEWADMIN: It's just German._

It's all she can think of to say. Her own voice played back crackles all alien and harsh, and for lack of something to do with her fingers she fiddles with the mic arm until its practically in her lap. A reply comes back almost immediately. In comparison to her own message the sound quality is absurd, like someone is physically standing by her desk and she just hasn't quite noticed. Niki thinks about this at length, because she cannot think of anything else without the blood rushing quietly to her head. 

_JUBILEETXT: Woah. German. That's an old one. Is your power omniglossy or something?_

_VIEWADMIN: Sure. Or something._

There are, gosh, there are procedures in place for this. Questions she's supposed to ask, a tone she's meant to establish. Yet in the moment itself, everything slides away except a mounting kind of horror. What will she tell those in charge? And how? What will happen to Berlin in the light of this? Is it all a trick at her expense? 

Questions are still inundating her mind when the stranger speaks again, their lilting tone made gripping by unfamiliarity.

_JUBILEETXT: No worries, I won't pry. Nobody listens to these anymore anyway, or even reads them. I'm pretty certain.  
JUBILEETXT: Anyway. In English maybe this time, what can I do for you?_

_VIEWADMIN: Um. Sorry, this is a lot to take in. I have...questions..._  
_VIEWADMIN: Where are you from? Are you powered?_

Hundreds of miles away, Will Gold leans forward from his inveterate slouch and begins to worry in earnest. 

_JUBILEETXT: London, obviously. This is the London Undersky admin network. Where else would I be from?_  
_JUBILEETXT: Of course I'm powered. Everyone's powered. I don't know why you'd ask that._

Her new contact's voice suddenly grows curt, interrogative; she hadn't noticed the smile in their voice until its absence. Not good questions to ask. Niki can't lose this now, so she draws back and stumbles over a clarification. 

_VIEWADMIN: L-london. That wouldn't happen to be anywhere in Berlin, would it?_

_JUBILEETXT: Doesn't ring a bell._

"Shit." A strange mixture of euphoria and fear trickles downwards from Niki's scalp. This is wonderful. This is terrible. This is her life's goal and her greatest fear in one, and she doesn't know where to begin.

_VIEWADMIN: Shoot. Uh. Um, can we start this conversation again?_

_JUBILEETXT: Sure._

It's terse but instant. She picks up the script again, kind of, and at least that's something calming to cling to. The roar of blood swelling in her ears quietens to a manageable low rumble _._

_VIEWADMIN: Hello. My name's Niki, and I'm from Berlin. My job is to find other powered colonies and prove it to my people._

_JUBILEETEXT: Hello, Niki. [laughter] My name's Will, I'm from London, and your people can't have been looking very hard._

_VIEWADMIN: What._

_JUBILEETXT: Most of us aren't exactly hard to find, dude._  
_JUBILEETXT: Are you sure this isn't a joke? I don't mind if it is._

_VIEWADMIN: It's not. I swear it's really, really not._

That's how it all starts. See, Will from London isn't like anybody she's ever met. It becomes apparent through chatting with them that they don't think Niki's from Berlin at all - that she's just a bored coworker messing around. It's an upgrade from outright contempt, that's for sure, so she humours it the best she can and angles the questions towards them more personally. It works almost too well. 

They like making music, a kind performed for its own sake that she can't quite imagine, and they love being in the sky about as much as she loathes it. They can't taste much, but if they don't eat all the time they can pass out - two things they quickly reassure her are specific to them and not that common. 

Every such nuance is a delight. Their first conversation goes on for so long that she dozes off in her chair a few times, and Will points out that though it's been fun to gain a "pen pal", as they put it, she should get some sleep. Clearly they don't believe in her plea, or in Berlin.

Even though it's all utterly true, to be suspected of a good-naturedly elaborate prank feels so friendly and natural that it takes her breath away.

That night Niki struggles home through the wind and the dark. The residence guard is as brutish and long-winded as ever; after inspection she collapses into bed without another thought. Only in the morning does she realise that she forgot to actually report her findings. Well, she'd only get in trouble for holding off until now. Maybe it can wait a little longer, she justifies.

_JUBILEETXT: And I was all, 'Dude, are you kidding? I'd love to. Absolutely would love to.' The look on his face was unreal._

A day longer.

_VIEWADMIN: No, I'm being serious! She says it's the best but I can't believe it's not, just, just mud on a plate. It tastes so bad, I can't...um, übertreiben...I can't over-say how gross it is._

Surely a week can't hurt.

_JUBILEETXT: How do you get imports? Dude. Dude, no. Niki, please be straight with me. [pause] Have you ever had pizza?_

Just a month more.

_VIEWADMIN: Ugh. At least it's not useless like some jobs. You're the most interesting thing to come through here in years._

Every few days, it occurs to her again that she _really_ needs to hand this spiraling situation off to the people actuallly in charge. But then Will makes a stupid joke or mentions something she doesn't understand, and the more they tell her about life outside Berlin the more she wants to keep them entirely to herself. 

She learns that they are in fact a he, self-described as tall and skinny with dark hair. She learns that he doesn't really like talking about his power, which is more than fine with time. She learns that he believes her, somewhere around when she asks what exactly a degree entails. She learns that there are three kinds of colony, all dramatically powerful forces to be reckoned with. She learns, on that note, that she's been lied to. 

_JUBILEETXT: Wow, yeah. [sigh] If you tot it all up, there must be colonies everywhere by now._

_VIEWADMIN: Just sky, or...[laughter] ground-colonies and water-colonies too? Oh, I'm sorry, they sound so silly._

_JUBILEETXT: [laughter] Probably because they're sea-colonies, but yeah, that's the gist. That's why I still think its so odd that your lot haven't found anyone yet. Are you in, like, a desert?_

_VIEWADMIN: You could say that._

After much deliberation, she sends over the coordinates for their place on the plains. Will doesn't reply for a few minutes, and she goes into a minor panic. 

_JUBILEETXT: Okay. I did some digging around the transport maps and in your sector - that's like, a bunch of square miles - there are fourteen known sky-colonies and at least three ground-colonies. Maybe more? They're harder to pin down. You're way inland, so unless you have any new huge lakes I don't know about that should be it._

Oh. Oh, and that sure is a lot. Even though she's sitting it feels as though Niki is somehow falling, staggering through an endless landscape of faces she can never see. People she can never meet. Places she can never go, and even if she could-

_JUBILEETXT: Niki? Niki, are you still there?_  
_JUBILEETXT: I'm sorry. Maybe your close-range stuff is broken. I don't...I couldn't say. Uh. I truly am sorry._

Maybe it's too fast. Maybe it's dangerous. But it's not like there's anything tying Niki to Berlin anymore, and Wilbur mentions some very interesting connections when she voices her exasperation with the immutable routine. In the back of her mind something about that is worrying. But she has a goal now, for the first time in forever, and very little left to lose.

And so, slowly but surely, the two of them begin to form a plan.


	3. welcome to the hotel california

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh yeah, now it's all coming together

You'd think that after this long, Dave would start being more careful. For the most part he feels secure in his mental discipline, painting a portrait of emotion from a muted pallette that keeps him from craving or contemplating anything too dangerous. But he's only inhuman. Sometimes, he makes the mistake of wanting.

Little things, as a kid, haunting the rookeries of California with hunger in his hands. He wanted it not to be his turn to do housework, and suddenly his sister felt like one-upping him. He wanted to find a good deal on the market, and all of a sudden a friendly face would offer him a discount in return for a little work. A decision dependent on a coin toss or a game of sky-ground-sea would always fall in his favour, no matter what. Unchecked, such luck was unstable and unstoppable. A death sentence in as many words.

Or it should have been. Dave was only twelve when he found out that his power won every fight. It was ridiculous. Thugs would stub their toes, miss their shots, fumble money back into his hands. Of course he tried to go easy on his older younger sister in their teenage scrums, but no matter how much control he gained over the rest of his power she would always, always lose.

So really, you'd think that he would have the foresight _not_ to idly note that being a border guard is insipid work, and the alertness _not_ to let it slip from his mind like nothing. Fortune favours the bold, after all, so he strives towards mediocrity with every breath.

Yet here he is now, acutely aware of the omnipresent grime that trims each line in his face with unearned seriousness. Dave's standing in a sumptuously clean atrium, waiting, with a mind as clear and placid as a puddle. Empaths and telepaths are a dime a dozen this close to the innermost sanctum of the California State Capitol, so he pulls his thoughts in tight to overly ardent appreciation of the architecture and a telling hint of curiosity.

A gruff official leads someone into the room who simply can't be a Californian native. They're milk pale and sharp-eyed with long blonde hair, less sun-bleached than golden. Presumably a girl, at most two or three years his senior. Familiar in a roundabout way. 

Someone important, his intuition says, but she dispels that notion by clapping both hands together loudly and whirling around to her guide. The sound echoes through the lobby like the final note of a funeral dirge.

"Bodyguard, I assume?" she says without preamble, and doesn't wait for a response before stepping back to size him up. "Awesome! That's so great, I like him already. Smart eyes. Dave, right?"

She pumps his hand up and down with performative enthusiasm. He thinks about his sisters and looks down at it and forces a smile.

"That's me." It's supposed to be a dry wisecrack, but he remembers where he is halfway through and manages not to butcher a comptetent low growl. Eyebrows are raised. "Luckiest guy around." 

"Mm. Well, you are now," the guest counters in a casual sing-song. Again, it's familiar. "I'm Minx. I do music. I need a tour guide who won't let anyone kick my ass, and the brass here says your power can help with that. Whatever. I won't ask unless it comes up."

He nods, attempting with visceral effort not to have an opinion on any of that, and points towards the open door and the stench of the street. To his stupefaction, Minx Who Does Music smiles graciously and follows Dave without a look back. "Holy _shit,"_ she remarks boredly as soon as they're outside. "D'y'know, you're the first person I've met who hasn't asked me for a bloody autograph? Please don't. I'm this far from a tantrum." 

Dave doesn't quite know what to do with this information, so he grunts neutrally and pulls her around the next corner by the hem of her shawl. Hosting luminaries is an uncommon assignment, even for someone of his peculiar talent, but her chatter is relatively tolerable in comparison to certain snobs he could name. Nodding and humming at the appropriate times seems more than enough to hold up his end of the conversation.

The towering political district falls away behind them as he leads her through the crowded streets. It gives way to the seafront and to the markets. The fearful rumbling of a thousand low tones and the miasma of rotting fish give voice here to the growing ache of California, to the rumours of failing engines and failing leadership. Dave's grip on Minx's arm tightens, and she doesn't protest when he speeds up.

When they pass the western railing, a rickety ironwrought affair, Minx is awed into silence for a few minutes by the rainbows dancing under the shields and over the sea. He pulls her onwards anyway. Passable working-class suburbia thins soon enough into a maze of rank alleyways and empty cobblestone paths slick with turbine oil. It is a dismal place. It is his birthright.

Below their feet, legions of engineers slave away to keep California afloat. For every person topside, there must be at least three officers with batons and incentives to use them. This is the gauntlet they must cross, if they want to reach the high-class hotels before nightfall. Dave has always thought it strange that those gated streets offer such an illusion of prosperity, when to get there from the port requires one to bear the worst of the wretched slums.

Speaking of which.

"Okay. You really do need to be quiet now," and he's trying to be serious when he says it but Minx seems determined to stop and talk to every urchin that recognises her. Grease is smeared across her collar, starkly pearlescent against starched white. "There are lots of bad people living 'round these parts." 

"They look more sad than bad to me," she retorts habitually. What he doesn't need right now is some city slicker accustomed to a back-and-forth at every turn. "What happened to this pla-"

"Shut up!"

By the time his mouth is closed it's already too late. Three indistinguishable bandits melt out of the shadows, one quite literally. Invisibility. Dave can work with invisibility. "Get behind me," he snaps, and this time Minx doesn't argue past digging through her bag. Hopefully it's for a weapon. Hopefully she knows how to use it. Whether his good fortune will extend to her without exhausting him is doubtful, and he's not taking any chances with the life of a celebrity. Fuck knows its worth more than his own.

If he's right - and he usually is, when it comes to lucky guesses - they're only dealing with teenagers. No need to get too violent. It's still irritating when the the three of them rush him with a planned kind of disarray, eyeing Minx's clean clothes as a sign of helplessness, steeped in the hubris of a 3v1. 

The formerly invisible kid goes to punch him and disappears mid-strike; Dave flails vaguely back and manages to catch their hand, stunning them into view long enough for him to kick them smoothly in the groin. He's not surprised anymore by such improbable escapes, but Minx gasps behind him; there's the flicker of something silver in his peripheral vision.

Rudderless with their friend stunned and stumbling, the other thugs rear back with comical outrage, and one summons from nowhere a fuckoff sabre that seems rather too large to be fair. Some kind of storage power. But two can play at the game of blades, and Dave unsheathes his government-sanctioned diamond sword with only the slightest twinge of regret. The likes of him aren't exactly allowed guns, sure, but this thing was forged by half a dozen powered and has seen generations of use. He almost, almost feels bad when his enemy scrambles backwards away from his first jab and hits their head on the wall. Almost.

Meanwhile the third has wisely backed off and decided to grapple with Minx - both could clearly hold their own in a tavern brawl but her dagger gives his charge the upper hand. Dave punches her attacker in the jaw from behind and wonders, in the very few seconds of dazed preparation they have before the thugs recoup, what they're going to do next.

Minx hisses something in another language under her breath, and the problem seems almost to solve itself. At first he figures it to be his own power, but all three of their aggressors flee from _something._ Dave's eyes skate over it when he tries to focus on the same patch of dirt. Whatever it is, it sends them away screaming and crying like orphaned babes. It would seem that Minx does more than music.

He turns to the woman he has been appointed to safeguard like a defenceless child and silently demands an explanation for her effortless victory.

"Y'know, t'would have been a sight faster if you'd just let me do that from the start. Now your hands are all fucked up, look." She grabs his wrists and grumbles her disapproval, purposefully not meeting his eye.

"What actually is your power?" he asks, pulling away to inspect the sword. Subtlety has never been his strong suit.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Colourful tendrils weave around her fingers as she wiggles them, gone in the blink of an eye. Equivocal at best. He can't stand rich people. "This is so refreshin'. You have no idea, I feel alive!" 

"You're aboutta feel rather more dead if they decide to fetch reinforcements," Dave points out, hand on the pommel of his sword, and they hustle into the upscale streets with scarce more to say to each other. She's clearly smart and powerful. The kind of interesting person he'd like to befriend over cheap beer. But they come to a curling golden gate Dave has never passed through, and the guard there asks for her autograph, and he remembers why that is impossible.

She offers the arm he's been dragging her along by all day and he moves stiffly out of reach. For a brief moment she looks shocked and saddened. He can't find it in himself to care.

Awake in the hotel's frugal staff quarters that night, he takes it upon himself to do some research on the precious computer installed there. It has multiple baffling long-distance communication options and a knowledge database, and he types "Minx" into the latter. It's the common and apparently legal name of Ireland-born superstar Just A Minx, famous for her aggressive stage presence and powerful voice. 

She's beloved by the teens, if mainstream. Recently named a 30 Under 30 Media Luminary. Utterly devoted to her fanbase and music. Now he thinks about it, his youngest sister had definitely procured at least one of her albums on the black market. It had seemed an unjustifiable luxury at the time, before his powers came in.

Keeping Minx safe is a sweet deal, he decides. Something new every day, the antithesis of shield work. One day she pays a street artist exorbitantly to draw the two of them and gives him the result. Another time, he racks his brains and shows her the pigpens. 

The smell and the noise are enough to keep away all but the swineherds, and so sometimes he likes to sit on the fence and think uninterrupted. Pigs don't judge. Pigs don't care if they're on the floor or in the sky or evenby the ocean.

It's all very juvenile and stupid, and he expects a laugh when he explains it, but she looks at him very seriously and remarks that she feels the same way about sheep. 

"Clouds with legs," she describes them as when he asks, pulling at a loose thread of wool from his jumper and giggling. "Imagine clothes tailored from clouds."

He smirks, and then realises that if such a thing existed she could probably afford it. They don't say much to each other for the rest of the night.

"I can't perform to these people," she groans at the end of another day of meetings. They're eating on the roof of the hotel, the waitstaff shooting dirty looks at Dave's sword. Sadly it's non-negotiable. He stops considering the pros and cons of stuffing bread in his pockets and tilts his head at her sceptically. "Not like that, dude. No offence, but I'd say, like, maybe ten percent of the people here could afford economy tickets? I'd be playing to rich politicans if I wanted to just break even. That's not what my music's about."

It all seems pretty simple to Dave.

"Don't play, then?"

"It's not that simple." She dabs at her chin with a napkin and frowns. "Thousands of people want me here, more than almost anywhere else. I'll work something out." 

Between conferences she asks him to take her around the city, see the sights. He agrees, more out of curiosity than any innate generosity - her status can take them anywhere. They make a good fighting duo too, combat prowess bolstered by his luck and whatever her power produces that he can never quite catch a glimpse of himself. All in all, he has fun and makes bank and begins to enjoy the company of the eminently odd woman under his care.

Three weeks have passed when he begins to suspect that there's more to it than that.

"How long were you supposed to be here?" he blurts out, setting down drinks for both of them next to the computer. Milk and three sugars for her, as little like coffee as possible. Unfolding a pair of glasses from her pocket, Minx shrugs and takes a sip without lifting her gaze from the screen.

He takes a not-so-subtle gander at it and finds himself outclassed by the technology. Like everything else in Minx's room, it is spotlessly clean and ridiculously modern. Spending time here gives him the creeps, so he usually just stands guard outside and-

"You should come with me," Minx says suddenly. Wildly. "It's fuckin' awful here. Someone like you'll waste away." 

"I can't leave," he spits back immediately, in case they're being listened to. In case she somehow has forgotten how exactly he strongarms his household out of destitution every single day. "I'm legally an asset to the city of California."

She processes that for a disgusted moment. Then she pushes in the chair and looks at him with pleading eyes. It feels like refusing a sad puppy, all guileless pleading underpinned by innocence. Never in his life has he so strongly felt the impulse to help another person, if only to dispel this horrible sadness. Except.

"My mom's an illusionist, too." It's conversational, measured. Disappointment ripples through him but not shock. Not these days. "Not quite as powerful, though." If he keeps eye contact, she won't notice him edging towards the door. The glamour falls away. Vexed but clearly impressed, Minx flops bonelessly onto her bed.

"Worth a shot."

He has one hand on the handle. She's not even looking at him, rather up at the ceiling. Shadows that can't exist dance across it. "I'm gonna level wit' you. I really do need a bodyguard and I'd rather it was someone packin' your kind of luck. I could...buy," they both wince, "you from California for more money than they've ever seen, sell you back to yourself for nothin' and _bam._ Free Dave." 

And that's so, so tempting. Which means there must be a catch. He lets go of the doorhandle as an olive branch and sighs deeply.

"Alright, man of few words, alright. I'm a fuckin' legitimate businesswoman, Dave." Minx's tone grows fast and desperate as she talks. "I'll take an oath in front of a truthteller, write up a contract and Bob's your uncle. Hell, I'll do it anyway. Fuck knows you deserve it. But with that in _mind_ , I'm sayin' you should genuinely come with. That's not an order."

"I should hope not," he jokes, and lolls heavily over the abandoned chair. They both relax minutely. "Look, Minx, you're...this is big. This is a big decision. We're strangers."

"I'm on tour soon," she wheedles eagerly as if he hasn't spoken, and this time it's genuine and determined. "The whole of my sector. I'm talkin' big boys; Paris, Ireland, London. Wales, if my agent pulls his head out of his ass. Dozens more. You wanna see the world? You really wanna?" He does. He does want to more than anything. But there's one tether that will never leave him free.

"My family-"

"Paid for." It's almost impatient. "Look, this isn't a power trip. But it isn't out of the goodness of my heart, either. It gets lonely on the road. I need someone with me who isn't falling over themselves to suck my dick every time I breathe, or I'll go crazy." She shuffles a stack of papers on the bedside table.

"It gets real lonely," she repeats in a softer voice, and he feels himself giving in.

"We're not going to be friends," he warns as a cautious ultimatum, and she nods, straightens like someone expecting a blow, like someone expecting nothing kind at all. It's not something he's ever seen from a person like her. "I won't owe you anything."

"I know, man. I know. Just...let me pretend. Let me pretend for a little while. Okay?" 

He doesn't have to agree. There's no doubt in his mind by now that she'll make good on her word regardless - he could take his family and freedom far away and never look back. But she's still the kind of interesting person who he'd like to befriend over cheap beer. And he really does want to see the world. And Dave's luck has never, ever failed him before. He stands up. She sits down.

"Okay."


End file.
